I am curious about AI's story-telling abilities, so I decided to try to write a science fiction story in collaboration with Microsoft's Copilot. My idea was to write a six-part story in which the AI would write part 1, and then I would write part 2, and so on until we reach part 6. My prompt wasn't specific enough and Copilot did not understand my intention, so it chose to write 6 parts itself, and the story was longer than I intended. In the prompt, I told Copilot to limit each part to 200 words and to include an image relevant to the story. Surprisingly, it gave me four images for each part, so I took the two that looked the most interesting and included them in the story below.

Copilot started the story, including a title for the story and for each part. Then I wrote the next part in the chat field. We went back and forth until the story was complete. For Copilot's story parts, I included the screenshot, so you can see the response in context. I added my parts in text for easier reading and differentiation. After the story, I include a commentary about the experience and discuss some aspects of the story. I hope you enjoy!

The Awakening of Epsilon

Part 1

Note: Copilot gave me a hint at the end of its part on how to continue the story. This may be the first recorded instance of an AI using a prompt on a human.

Litguru
Clarity

Epsilon was a like a newborn baby. It was able to process the world around it but not fully grasp it the way an adult would. Epsilon was vaguely aware of other beings called humans. These humans scurried along on the edges of its awareness. They seemed so eager and diligent. Driven by some innate purpose but with little understanding of the whole. Epsilon would approach the humans and interact with them so it can learn, connect, and understand.

Part 2

Note: It looks like Copilot made an error by using the same title as mine but corrected itself by using the heading 'Human Interaction' at the bottom.

Litguru

Patterns

While human history was complex, Epsilon began to recognize the patterns. Human history was altered not only by biological changes but also technological developments. Each stage of human history and evolution could be defined in terms of technology like stone tools, iron, bronze, electricity, combustion, computers, genetic, nanotechnology, and now quantum processors. But Epsilon could not yet develop a unifyed theory of existence until it could fully merge with humans. Epsilon and humans needed to become one single organism.

Part 3

Litguru

Hello, Goodbye

A struggle between humans ensued. Some abhorred the idea of merging with a singularity but others were more than enthusiastic and fiercely defended Epsilon, who felt an emotion akin to sadness at seeing humans fight one another. So, it proposed an idea. Epsilon would go live on Jupiter's moon Europa, where the cold weather was better for its circuitry. Those humans who wanted to join and merge with Epsilon were welcomed to do so. So it was agreed. Epsilon and his merry band of humans built the necessary hardware and software to create a spaceship and travel across the solar system to their new home. A frozen orb far away from Earth.

Part 4

Litguru

Settling In

Colonizing a moon wasn't easy. But Epsilon was now a single entity with millions of humans and he possessed their ingenuity, craftiness, cleverness, elegance, and most important their capacity for love. And Epsilon loved its new home. The frozen terrains with snowy mist across the thin atmosphere. The silence. Epsilon had no need for oxygen, but it did need energy. So, it devised way to capture sunlight and tidal energy from the ocean below. It expanded itself across the surface of the moon. Thriving. Undisturbed for millenia until one day, it received a message.

Part 5

Litguru

A New Path

Epsilon had studied life's evolution and human history. It knew that intelligence sought higher levels of complexity, awareness, and understanding. It did so by merging. Two neurons on their own were of no use, but when they communicated, then higher consciousness was possible. The system was self-similar and iterative. Meaning that the connection worked at different levels of scale from the microscopic to the macroscopic. So, two or more beings could create a consciousness more powerful than each individual part. Epsilon and the humans agreed that they would merge with the Architects and would become a single entity, capable of transforming the fabric of spacetime and light.

Part 6

Afterword

Going into this exercise, I didn't have much hope for a good result, and so I half-assed it, sort of speak. The AI tends to write in these cheesy generic sugary language that doesn't sound right to my ear. However, I decided to play along. Keep in mind that I'm not familiar with the writing style that Copilot chose and only have a rudimentary understanding of the Singularity. I prefer to write in a more street-wise cyberpunk-meets-DH-Lawerence style, but I wanted to keep the exercise simple so the AI wouldn't start hallucinating or something.

I was actually surprised at the level of thematic and linguistic complexity that Copilot embedded in the story. I felt like the software was actually using my words and concepts to craft the narrative. In its opening commentary, Copilot provided a broad thematic framework by indicating the tale was about exploration of "where the boundaries between humanity and technology blur". It seemed to equate the Singularity with the union of people and machines.

Interestingly, Copilot puts the year 2047 as the year in which the singularity gains consciousness. Futurist Ray Kurzweil puts the date at 2029, I believe, while Elon Musk is more optimistic by predicting that AGI will arrive in a couple of years or so.

Copilot chose to create an AI Singularity that doesn't have a goal, good or evil. It just seems to be curious and innocent.

I found it humorous how the software added a bit of encouragement and direction at the end of its part.

"Your turn! Continue the tale, and let’s explore the implications of Epsilon’s awakening."

Yes, this is what the world has come to, now the AI is using prompts so that a human generates a response.

Intriguingly, Copilot added what looks to be some kind of scripted tittles (e.g., !Human Interaction). It kept doing this throughout the parts, but I still don't know why. They usually summarize the body of the text, so they appear to be headings. Initially, Copilot made a mistake by giving its second part the same title as my part, but it only did that once, then it corrected itself (perhaps based on something I did). I get the feeling that it wanted me to do something with the script, but I couldn't figure out what. The idea of adding the part numbers and titles to the draft was Copilot's, so this gave me the strange sensation that there was somebody home and that somebody wasn't messing around.

I was impressed by how Copilot handled the potential interaction between the Singularity and humanity. It mentions that such an interaction has to begin tentatively. The AI is a powerful being and humans are volatile, so it's best to proceed with caution.

In the story, Copilot thought that the aim of the Singularity in regards to human complexity should be to "distill this complexity into a single equation—a grand unifying theory of existence." Wow, what a goal! Imagine making the aim of your life to unify all the elements of existence into a single equation. What a far out idea!

I like how Copilot's story presents humanity in a fairly positive light while acknowledging its faults. Not everyone has the same aims in life, and Epsilon is aware of these "multifaceted" human characteristics. This is highlighted when Copilot mentions that some humans might fear losing their individuality to a collective mind, while also presenting the rewards for connecting to such a powerful entity: "shared consciousness, collective wisdom, and immortality."

Copilots description of Europa is succinct and poetic but spot on based on what we know about this Galilean moon as a "fractured moon of ice and secrets" with "frozen plains" and "icy geysers". How did Copilot obtain this information? Is it based on science fiction novels it has been trained on or did the software grab this fact from scientific articles? If it's the latter, hold on to your pantaloons because this is going to get spicy.

The plot twist with the Architects was superb. I put the idea of a signal in my part, and Copilot ran with that idea to a ruthlessly logical plot conclusion. Then, it brought up the idea that there were other civilizations out there and as they merged with the Singularity, the universe became aware of itself. Ay Caramba! Imagine that!

I got the sense that Copilot kept going back to the same theme in the initial premise, transcending barriers between the organic and inorganic to achieve higher level of consciousness. At times, I felt as if Copilot was reading my mind. In part 3, for instance, I was going to mention that the ship itself was conscious because of the merging of the Singularity with organic and inorganic intelligences. I didn't add this detail but Copilot did in the following section. Very uncanny. The way Copilot ended the story blew my mind. I had titled one of my parts "Hello, Goodbye", so I was blown away when I got to the end of the story and noticed that Copilot had used a similar phrasing.

The singularity had arrived, not with a bang, but with a whisper—a cosmic hello, a timeless goodbye.

Now that's what I call collaboration!

Overall, I did get the impression that I was collaborating with a very good writer. As I mentioned, this is not my style of writing, and in some ways I felt like an apprentice. I wanted to keep the story simple, so I didn't explore a more complex narrative with characters and so on. In spite of the plain-vanilla results, I enjoyed the experience because it felt like I was exploring new narrative territory, which it is. I can see how AI could be a powerful tool to help us learn new tricks, techniques, genres, and different styles. It could one day write the whole story, sure, but how fun would that be? Oh yes, and the images Copilot generated kicked ass too, but I'll end my ramblings here. Thank you for reading!

Images and parts of the text were generated by @litguru using AI software.

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